Hi I agree with almost of all of what Lambert says. I would think that the actual membership of any working group would need to include two broad classes of people: (a) those with a long-term knowledge of OSM, how it works and how the whole nexus of software/mapping/rendering/data_use hangs together; (b) those with some specialist knowledge of the particular topic - i.e. mostly different people for wood/forest/... to those for cemetery/graveyard/burial_ground/crematorium/human_waste_disposal_site or path/track/footway ....
It goes without saying (almost) that there has to be some sort of 'geopolitical'/linguistic balance if the group is to take a 'world view'. Who gets to decide who is in? Tough one ... But maybe a very crude stab at an initial model would be (only once the job is spec'd - i.e. what is the job, what work product is expected, what are the criteria for completion and success): Step 1: canvas widely within the OSM community for interested volunteers and nominations (nominations only with the permission of the person nominated); Step 2: publish the list widely (with perhaps name= , interest= , special knowledge= , geographical location= , language(s)= and give an opportunity for objections (if any) and further nominations; Step 3: create a final list; Step 4: random selection of subsets of names from the list to get the right sort of total number (whatever that might be!) - i.e. subset of names to represent geography; a subset of names to represent language; a subset of names to represent skills needed in the group; Step 5: add subsets to form group. OK - I am not going to defend this - treat it as a thought process starter! Mike Harris -----Original Message----- From: Lambert Carsten [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 16 August 2009 08:41 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] [english 95%] A process for rethinking map features Hi, Implementing the outcome of what the working group comes up with is not an issue IMO. We have the presets in the editors and the errors in keepright. Together those are way more powerful than any discussion here or even the mapfeatures page.. My guess is that the developers those projects will be very happy with clear guidance on the 'rules'. The main task of the working group would be to search through mailing list(s), discussion pages etc. and decide what the outcome is. The way I see it all the pieces are there it is just unclear as to what the outcome/conclusion is. So the goal would be to collect all the points of view, weigh them and present their conclusion. The wiki page could have an extra tab where the outcome of the working group presents their result. If unhappy comments turn up on the mailing list they could decide to go a second round. When they have finished a subject the mapfeature would be updated. Also they would inform the various developers groups (editors, keepright, stylesheets) of the status quo, and hopefully there is a contact for the translated mapfeatures pages. The working group would decide which feature to tackle, but there could also be a 'wishlist' where requests could be put up and be voted on to get an order of priority helping them which feature to tackle next. I am not a big fan of voting. Sometimes it is necessary to cut a long discussion short where one needs to 'force' an agreement. So voting the way it is now where those involved in the discussion do the voting IMO doesn't need to change. The hard part as I see it is who gets to decide who is in the working group. Is it a fixed group where we vote who gets in? Maybe ad hoc groups where someone announces on this mailing list they want to tackle a feature and invites others to join? When is a group a group? The working group will need some kind of authority to work, otherwise they will just be ignored and ineffective. Lambert Carsten On Sunday 16 August 2009 01:51:43 James Livingston wrote: > On 16/08/2009, at 2:20 AM, Tom Chance wrote: > > Probably sensible to start with something more manageable than path/ > > highway. > > Maybe the forest/wood debate. > > Sounds good to me. The important thing is that the group has their > goals set out explicitly, so they know exactly what they should be > doing, and they know when they're finished. > > To me, this means that we need to collect a complete list of all the > tree/wood/forest-related things that people may want to add to OSM > (even if they already have tagging solutions), with good descriptions, > if possible photos and what implications people think they have. The > WG could then sit down and figure out which of them are actually the > same, and then find a good tagging scheme. > > > I think the "complete list of what we want to tag" is something we're > missing in the current arguments. How are we supposed to know if what > people are talking about are actually the same thing? Especially since > language is an issue, either not having English as a first language, > or not having the same English (e.g. British vs Australia vs American). > > > The one missing part to work out is how we respond to the proposal. > > The best > > thing I can imagine is if we could set-up a poll that uses our > > OSM.org logins and we notify as many users as possible through every > > channel available. We could set the bar at something like >1000 > > votes and a 66% majority needed. > > I think that if the WG comes up with a solution after taking into > account, then it would likely be acceptable to most people. If not, > then it probably didn't represent a crosssection of the community, or > people didn't add their items to the list of things to tag. > > _______________________________________________ > talk mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk _______________________________________________ talk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
